


Year-Long Romance

by TrisB



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Christmas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 22:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrisB/pseuds/TrisB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has expected the first Christmas back to break her heart, but it doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Year-Long Romance

**Author's Note:**

> oh my god, a winter for a year  
> been knocking at the back of my wardrobe for a year  
> jackets never turn into branches,  
> not while you're not here
> 
> \- Arcade Fire

She has expected the first Christmas back to break her heart, but it doesn't; it's like slipping on fur-lined gloves only briefly removed, still warm from the wearing of them. There had been some debate with the others as to whether stockings should be left out — Mother couldn't understand why they wouldn't — but Lucy and Peter won, Edmund abstaining altogether. Susan feels a rare moment of sympathy for Edmund, and imagines how he must feel. She hooks her stocking around her bedpost before she goes to sleep, and prays not to wake up to the selfish thought of _Is that it?_ when the trinkets inside are meagre and cheap.

She doesn't; loves what she's been given, and is at least as thankful just for that.

"Happy Christmas — Happy Christmas — Happy Christmas," they all murmur to one another throughout the morning. Susan catches a gutted look pass on Edmund's face when Mother says that Father Christmas has come, but there are gifts for everyone and nobody ruins the moment with admonishments about going over rations. Lucy made cards marked in childish crayon and is pleased with herself; inside each one there's a dubious drawing of a lion. There are hugs and slipper feet and nobody changes out of their pyjamas until noon, and then Susan brushes her hair and dresses so that she can help Mother in the kitchen. She feels important, making the pudding, and hums a dryad hymn to the winter's start until even Mother's picked up on the tune, and they laugh and sing together; Susan thinks that after all, Solstice passed means the darkness has lost another year's weak-willed gumption.

Dinner is the clatter of china on wood and Ed doing an elephant impression with his soup spoon. With Father still gone, Peter sits at the head of the table, and Susan at his right hand. Lucy and Edmund sit opposite from her and make lame attempts at sampling the goblets of mulled wine which she and Peter have been given. Mother distracts them by producing the Christmas crackers, all of which except Peter's (holding a joke with a disappointing punchline) contain paper crowns. Susan mocks him but holds the crook of his arm when they listen to King George's wireless address. She can feel his breath warming her neck, finds it distracting, when Lu and Edmund squeeze them into the corner of the sofa so they can all sit facing Mother in the armchair and discuss with lilting guile the relative merits of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Peter shakes with laughter and reaches over her head to box playfully at Edmund once, and Susan burrows in between them, and even after a whole day of this she can't help but revel in this forgotten sensation, the one of honest celebration.

In the evening she and Lucy go for a short walk, and amble westerly, enjoying the last rays of the sun before blackout. "Su!" Lucy cries, grasping eager hands out into the chilly air, "Look!" Susan is ready to tell her that she is already, that the sunset is beautiful, but then the cold sheet of atmosphere making the sun look so oddly frosted becomes obscured and she understands that it's snowing, the first snowfall of the winter. A thrill runs up the back of her knees and makes her chest feel full and warm, and she squeezes Lucy instinctively, wanting a little to dance. Lucy grins over her furred collar, but after a few minutes her eyes become serious and Susan can tell her sister is worried, as ever, about Edmund and how he'll react. She allows Lucy to tug her along back home, outpacing the tiny flakes that nestle in their hair, but she cannot help but think Edmund and Lucy would be as glad as she is if only they remembered the other joy of this snow, besides the delight of its coming — that daylight will return and winter retreat; that this is a magic that melts.


End file.
